Well, what does the data say? Maybe I'm wrong, or have worded it wrong, but as far as "intangibles feedback" goes, I believe (based on personal expirience, what I keep hearin from other people indirectly, and based on constant points of conflict in various discussions), that avoiding the risk of investing too much real time is a big constant. Even when it doesn't look like that at first.

The big deal not being investing vast ammounts of time, obviously, but allocation of the time invested, ofc. Otherwise I wouldn't have 75% completion in 20 dungeons on my 3rd playthrough That resulted from mostly doing what I want to do when I load up DD.

EDIT: And as far as shifting the focus from number crunching into "expirience" feedback - you got a lot of that lately. All of this mess IS that.

You know, one thing I seem to be getting out of the locker "issue" was that it seems like the Dev really wanted the locker system to be DD's equivalent of most RPG's "skill specialization system", so to speak. The one where you put skill points into skills to define your character.

Not as "hard" a spec system like Diablo 2 since you can "re-spec" by finding a new item to replace a slot in your locker but annoying the player through a time cost is part of the "balancing" factor if you see it as a spec system.

That being said, it's hard to visualize items as something "permanent". If it was visualized as "research plans" or whatever... but "put item in locker" tends not to portray an action of permanence and is probably one of those gameplay/representation segregation thing.

Hey I just walked in. I haven't really read up beyond page 4, but figured I'd atleast do what I could by answering this for Aequitas:

Aequitas wrote:So I'd like to know, in all honesty, if playing a run in DD without the item you *want* isn't fun? (not just from Lujo, but everyone)?

No. The game is fun even without items. My problem with the locker system is that if I want to experiment with certain items outside my usual picks, (such as Orb of Zot, Troll Heart or Argonistic Collar) I will have to get my hands on them first.

"Which farm animal is featured prominently in Desktop Dungeons?" "Snakes"

TigerKnee wrote:You know, one thing I seem to be getting out of the locker "issue" was that it seems like the Dev really wanted the locker system to be DD's equivalent of most RPG's "skill specialization system", so to speak. The one where you put skill points into skills to define your character.

Not as "hard" a spec system like Diablo 2 since you can "re-spec" by finding a new item to replace a slot in your locker but annoying the player through a time cost is part of the "balancing" factor if you see it as a spec system.

That being said, it's hard to visualize items as something "permanent". If it was visualized as "research plans" or whatever... but "put item in locker" tends not to portray an action of permanence and is probably one of those gameplay/representation segregation thing.

I think this was the intention as well. I recall one of the devs stating that they always wanted each kingdom to be unique, and that the locker plays a large role in that.

But most games have this kind of specialisation system that locks you into a prescribed path. The idea is that you restart the game to try a new strategy or build.

But DD is completely open from the start. There's no real reason to restart a game because you have access to every build ever.

The locker is the only element which gives to the player then takes away; it is theoretically infinite but practically limited.

I think this RPG/ARPG style of build specialisation has to be all-or-nothing in a game; either a long haul where everything is customisable or a short game where you specialise that you can replay quickly multiple times.

Edit: now that I think of it, it could be cool to play the game this way. Choose a guild; theif, fighter, mage or preist and only use those classes through the whole game...

I think people need to know exactly how to get items for re-lockering. Maybe this will be part of the codex. But I know I never unlockered some items that were particularly hard to get, because I didn't want to have to re-get them.